I just spent the weekend at Floydfest, a hippie music festival. Lots of strange outfits - kilts, thong and cape (don't ask). Tie dye, shorts almost qualify as conservative. But most people had tongue planted pretty firmly in cheek. Print boy and the Sartorialist don't seem to have enough of a sense of humor.

BTW, do men get a waiver from the shorts rule if they have elaborate leg tattoos? (Is it called a "sleeve" if it's on a leg?) How about if it's only one leg? So little time, so much to know.

(And since it's 105 today, 107 tomorrow, I have a hard time caring about your anti-shorts campaign-although I personally find dresses far more cool in hot weather and will be wearing nothing but all week!)

1-5 The material! Combine the primary colors found in a more disreputable abattoir, with a print which is, what? One can only assume the fabric is something uncomfortable just on the basis of what someone chose to print onto it. Perhaps the designer thought, "This material is so scratchy, unbreathable and poorly draping, I will get even with it by making it look as bad as it feels".

6. Long sleeves with shorts? Really? Why? What possible reason is there to have long sleeves when you have already taken the step of wearing shorts?

7. White basketball shoes. I would think dark colored shoes that have a lot less to them would be better.

8. The guy: Not pleasant to look at and should therefore wear something that allows him to blend in with the crowd.

9. The shorts. This is really only a sop to Althouse. A fit man looks good in well made shorts.

Businessmen and high-level government officials in Dahomey (now called Benin, but I'll stick with the original) used to wear outfits like this, only with long pants and lost of yellowish color. And in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo, but, well you know) Gov't officials used to wear an almost similar outfit but tailored of heavy suiting material and costing several thousand dollars each -- to flaunt their riches. Mobutu had dictated that senior officials must wear this aba-cos (literally "down with business suits") as part of their ZANU party "colors".

"It's fashionable and acceptable for Southern men to wear shorts. Yankees just can't fathom it, have no reason to manifest it, and therefore are culturally incapable of appreciating it."

You people have rather low standards of both fashionable and acceptable down there...

Look at images from the past. You will NEVER see grown men wearing shorts in public in the US (with the acceptable exceptions of sports, camping, beach, etc.) before 1950. Not in the South, not in the North, nowhere.

Unless you have gorgeous legs and a sporty demeanor, shorts always look awful and infantilizing. Pants of light, breathable materials such as linen offer just as much "ventilation" as shorts in non-sporting situations.

Women don't even look very good in shorts.

If you want to show off your legs, wear a skirt or kilt. But you'd better have the legs to pull it off.

"Unless you have gorgeous legs and a sporty demeanor, shorts always look awful and infantilizing. Pants of light, breathable materials such as linen offer just as much "ventilation" as shorts in non-sporting situations."

I don't believe, technically, that this can be correct. Close maybe, but 'any' material versus no material hinders ventilation.

Also, I wouldn't use the term 'gorgeous' to describe my legs, manly, I think, would be a better descriptor and I have received compliments on same.

Agree though, no shorts, except for children previous to the fifties. Then some marketing genius realized that he could charge the same price for shorts as long pants... using less material. The rest is history as they say.

I am reminded of Went with the Wind, the Carol Burnett skit, wherein Harvey Korman (Rhett) tells Carol Burnett (Scarlett) that she loves her dress, and she says she saw in the window and she couldn't resist it.

Socks are for when it is cold. Sandals are for when it is hot.Pick one!

Also, as someone who sells comfort shoes -- anyone can wear sandals. But make sure that they fit properly. The only unattractive feet are the ones with red blotches all over, the toes creeping over the end of the shoe, the width creeping over the sides, and bunions/corns/hammer toes/mallet toes disfiguring the too tight leather.

I don't care about amputated toes or surgery scars, just make sure they fit!

Obviously his aunt had old curtains and a pattern she last used to make him an outfit when he was four years old. I think she is very intrepid for figuring out how to upsize it and putting those old curtains to use rather than in the trash!

Although it's only a 10 minute walk, I rarely go to the beach swimming anymore, but I had visitors from back east this week and that's what they wanted to do.

Althouse's fevered hatred of shorts has kept me out of them for many months. The resulting mismatch between my legs and everything else produced a deep anger in me. She still has enough liberal in her to be substantially wrong about some things. It comes with the ideology. Your whole body deserves to see the sun occasionally.